MILLWOOD
(south of Lavon)
MILLWOOD - 72 YEARS AGO
Weekly Democrat Gazette, August 15, 1929
By M. L. Foote
My father moved to
Millwood in Southeast Collin when I was too young to remember the move. I
remember back to when I was about 6 years old. We lived in a little log house a
short distance east of the cemetery. I have seen several letters written on the
early days of Millwood, but none of them have gone far enough back as I am the
only one at this place who was here at its beginning. I have, therefore been
solicited to write from my own personal memory and observation. However, I may
have to mention a few things partly from hearsay.
A Whipsaw.
Now I want to go
back to the first sawed lumber that was sawed here. While I don't remember
seeing this saw in operation, I do remember about where it was located on Camp
creek, southwest of the present village of Millwood. I have a dim recollection
of being in the bottom where some men were at work in the timber. They had dug a
big trench or pit in the ground and said that they wee making a location for a
hand power mill.
In those days,
lumber was scarce and hard to get. So they dug a pit about six feet deep and
placed two small logs across it, rolling their large log on those cross-pieces
and lined their log bottom and top. One man stood in the pit under the log and
one man stood on the log above. They used a saw which resembled a wide cross-cut
saw with handles crosswise of the blade of the saw. Each man had to follow the
line, bottom and top, up and down, up and down they went. Uncle Dent Helmstetler
told me that two good hands could cut 100 feet of lumber in a day. It was a slow
process, but they got there just the same. This saw was called a "whip saw."
Millwood 72 years
Ago.
Millwood, at that
time, seventy-two years ago, was on the hill south of where Millwood is now
located. There were only two residences, one general store and a blacksmith
shop. A man by the name of Smith or known as "Uncle Jimmie" Smith, occupied one
of those dwellings, and Hiram Boyd the other.
Old Ox Mill.
During those early
days, James Smith financed and built a flour mill on the same side of the
branch. It stood just across the branch from the place where the last gin stood
which was torn down a few years ago. The mill was built by W. G. Dewees. J. W.
Foote and D. Helmstetler. Dewees was the boss workman. This mill was run with a
large wheel thirty or forty feet in diameter. They place several oxen on one
side of this inclined wheel, for it took about eight heavy oxen on the wheel to
give it power. The oxen were fastened on the wheel so they could not back off.
When the brake was thrown off the wheel began to move and the oxen began to
walk. They would walk all day and not gain a foot on their travel. This wheel
was finally torn out and a large boiler and engine were installed and it then
became a steam mill. There was attached to it a saw for making lumber. This
resembled a wide crosscut saw. It ran with an up and down motion. This was
called a sash saw. Finally this saw was replaced with a circle-saw, and then
lumber could be cut out much more rapidly than before. This mill was burned down
when the war cloud began to get dark, and there was talk of the abolitionist of
the freedom of the negro.
Just before this
occurred a man by the name of Walter Cooley started to build a windmill, but it
was never completed. It was thought that he and another man, by the name of
Hull, burned the mill, as they left the country. There was also another man who
lived here for a short time, by the name of Benly, who was a preacher and an
abolitionist. He left here about the same time these other two men did and went
West It was reported that he was hanged by a mob in the cross-timbers of Denton
county.
Fitzhugh Mill.
Now back to the
mill. After the mill was burned the boiler and engine were moved from here and
taken to the place known as Fitzhugh mill, southeast of McKinney on Wilson
creek. Here is was in service for many years. The Fitzhugh mill was considered
the best mill in the country.
First Merchant Was
Murdered.
The first store at
Millwood was owned by a man named Johnson, called "Colonel" Johnson. J. D.
Naylor was clerk in this store. When I was a small boy this was the first store
I was ever in. There was an old man and his wife who lived about three-fourths
of a mile southwest of Millwood by the name of Lackey, who were harmless old
people and well liked by everybody. About the latter part of the year, before
Christmas in 1862, four brothers went to Lackey's house and called the old man
out and demanded his money. He told them that he did not have any money, but
they took him from his home to the edge of the brush and tore his toenails out
trying to make him tell where his money was hidden. As he had no money he could
not tell, so they decided that they would kill him and killed him in front of
his door in the present of his old wife. They then ransacked the house looking
for the money, kicking the old lady's knitting and ball of knitting thread over
the floor. Little did they know the secret this ball of yarn held, for within it
were two twenty-dollar gold pieces. When the ball of yarn would begin to get
small the old lady would wind more yarn on it - such were the times then.
Poor old Mr. Lackey
rests in the Millwood cemetery awaiting the resurrection of the just. But, what
about those four brothers who committed the dastardly deed of murder. I am
withholding the names of those four brothers whom I knew.
Pioneer Day Tragedy.
A short time after
this there was a man named James Reed, sheriff of Collin county, who met up with
one of these same boys at a dance. Reed discovered that this young fellow was
very free to talk, so he began to ask him questions. He told Reed that he and
his brothers had left Missouri for killing an old Union man and that they had
killed one since they had been here, and that it was Mr. Lackey. He also said
that they had another one picked out, so Reed said to him, "Let me in on the
next job," and was accepted by this man for the job. He asked the young man who
the next one was that they had picked to kill and was told that it was old man
McReynolds.
The time was set to
go after McReynolds, but before the time came, Reed and some other men from
Diamonds went after those four boys one very cold night, but found only three of
them at home. They took them somewhere between here and Farmersville and killed
two of them. They lined them up to shoot them and one of them made a break for
liberty, and succeeded in getting away. This being late at night the one that
got away wandered the rest of the night with only his underwear and sox on, in
the deep snow that covered the ground. These two boys that were killed are
sleeping their long sleep of death near the grave of the old man whom they
murdered. They are awaiting the resurrection, but will it be the resurrection of
the just in this case. I fear not, for the wages of sin is death.
Millwood's First
Blacksmith.
The first blacksmith
shop stood near the branch west of the mill that was burned. The smith's name
was John Thomas. Well do I remember the first mail route. It was carried from
Kaufman, Texas, by the way of Rockwall and Millwood to Farmersville. Some might
say I don't believe he can remembers so far back, but if you will think a little
you will remember that a small boy does not forget. This mail that was carried
seventy-two or seventy-three years ago was carried by vehicle or hack. This hack
passed near our house, and on it was a small brass bell on the lower hamstring I
would hear those little bells as they were crossing the bottom, and my sister
and I would run down to the road to see those small bells. We greatly enjoyed
the tinkle of those bells. One of the first, if not the first, mail carrier that
carried the mail on this route was named Lewis and I have been told that he was
a cousin to Mrs. Jake Huffman of Nevada. Several years ago a man came along by
this place and stopped and talked with me for a few minutes, looked around the
place and said that he carried the mail through here sixty years ago from
Kaufman to Farmersville and that his name was Lewis. I have been told that he
died a few years ago at the age of 84.
There is much more I
could write, but will not do no now. If this escaped the waste basket, and meets
with the approval of the editor, I will wrote more later on.
MILLWOOD
June 15, 1991
Mr. Luther Foote was
blacksmith at Millwood from 1912 to 1928. His shop was on the edge of the school
ground next to the grocery store, which was owned and run by Ike Emerson, son of
Dr. Emerson, who lived in a house behind the store, and Ike and Willie Emerson
lived across the road in front of the store.
When I was eleven
years old I would go by the blacksmith shop and watch Mr. Foote sharpen plows
and make horse shoes. He would let me turn the bellows to heat the plows, after
they got red hot, he would take them out of the fire and shape them up on the
anvil with a hammer. He always wore a leather apron to keep the sparks from
burning his clothes. When he left the shop he would always hang the apron on a
nail inside the back door. Mr. and Mrs. Foote lived across the road in front of
the shop. Their daughter Mrs. Effie Parish lived in a house back of the shop
between Dr. Emerson's and the school house. Mrs. Parish husband got shot and
killed when he confronted 3 bank robbers in Oklahoma. She had 1 son and 3
daughters-Luther, Opal, Pearl, Fay.
The school house was
a long building with a petition to divide it into 2 rooms-1, 2, 3, 4, 5 grades
in one room, 6, 7, 8 grades in the other room. The petition could be raised up
into the ceiling to have school plays or pie suppers or box suppers.
I was born May 14,
1916 in a house across the road from the church.
The old cotton gin
in the pasture east of the cemetery had been torn down. all that was there was
the old boiler that made steam for the gin. The gin pool is still there.
My Daddy bought a
nice big house and 3 acres on the hill south of Millwood. He later sold it to
Lawrence Flanagain. He then bought a old house and 9 acres across the road from
the church where the big mulberry tree still stands, and the new road crosses
the 9 acres across the middle where it makes a curve to the east at Millwood.
In the summer the
revivals were had under a brush arbor on the church ground. People would come
from miles around in buggys, wagons, and on horse back. Lunch was spread and a
good time was had by all.
Earl Brundidge Age
75 years
Millwood Cemetery
Communities Index
- Recommended
citation:
"Millwood - Collin County
Communities," Collin County, Texas History and Genealogy Webpage by
Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc., <http://www.geocities/genfriendsghl>
[Accessed Fri February 13 13:37:28 US/Central 2004 ].
| 